Free Online LAS / LAZ Viewer (No Signup)
Also opens DWG, DXF, STEP, IGES, IFC, SKP, STL, OBJ, GLB, FBX, 3DM and other 3D/CAD files — drop any file on the viewer.
Works in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge — no plugin required
Also from Innerscene: Circadian Lab, a free lighting calculator for room illuminance, melanopic EML, and glare.
What Is a LAS / LAZ File?
A LAS file is what comes off a laser scanner or out of a photogrammetry pipeline: millions of measured points, each with an X, Y and Z coordinate and, depending on the point data record format, a return intensity, an ASPRS classification code, a GPS timestamp, and red/green/blue color sampled from imagery. The format is maintained by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, which is why a scan from a drone, a survey tripod, an aircraft and a mobile mapping van all open in the same software.
LAZ is a LAS file whose point records have been compressed with LASzip. It is lossless — every coordinate comes back bit-for-bit — and usually lands between a fifth and a tenth of the original size, which is why almost everything distributed publicly (national elevation programmes, city-wide scans) ships as .laz.
Unlike STL or OBJ, a point cloud has no surfaces — nothing is joined up. What you see is the measurements themselves, which is exactly why surveyors work with them: nothing has been interpreted or smoothed away.
Who Uses LAS / LAZ Files?
Land surveyors and civil engineers working with airborne and terrestrial LiDAR; drone-mapping and photogrammetry users (Agisoft Metashape, RealityCapture, Pix4D, DJI Terra); scanner manufacturers and their software (Leica, Trimble, FARO, RIEGL, Matterport exports); GIS teams consuming national elevation data such as USGS 3DEP or the UK Environment Agency; and architects receiving a scan of an existing building before a retrofit.
Common Use Cases
- Open a .laz a surveyor sent you without installing desktop software
- Check a drone or photogrammetry scan before importing it into CAD
- Measure distances and heights directly on a scanned site or building
- Show ground, vegetation and building classes separately
- Share a scan with a client as a link they can spin in a browser
- Convert a point cloud to GLB or OBJ for a web or 3D pipeline
Features
Opens .las and .laz
Compressed LAZ files are decompressed in your browser with LASzip compiled to WebAssembly — nothing to install, nothing uploaded.
Every LAS Version
LAS 1.0 through 1.4, point data record formats 0 to 8, including the extended types written by modern scanners.
True Color Scans
Per-point RGB from drone and photogrammetry exports renders exactly as captured.
Classification Layers
A classified survey splits into ground, vegetation, buildings and water — toggle each from the Layers panel.
Intensity Shading
Clouds without color are shaded by return intensity, clipped to the range actually present so detail is visible.
Correct Units
Coordinates convert to meters from the file’s own coordinate reference system, so a scan surveyed in US survey feet measures right.
Measure On The Scan
Click two points to measure a distance or a height; clicks snap to the nearest measured point.
Handles Huge Clouds
Hundreds of megabytes and tens of millions of points open on a desktop, drawn from an evenly spread sample when a cloud exceeds what a screen can resolve.
Convert to GLB or OBJ
Export the cloud as glTF binary or as a colored Wavefront OBJ point set for downstream tools.
Share and Embed
Send a client a link to spin the scan in their browser, or drop the viewer into your own site with one iframe.
Compatibility & Format Notes
LAS 1.0 through 1.4 and point data record formats 0–8 are supported, compressed (.laz) or not. Coordinates are converted to meters using the file’s own coordinate reference system, so a scan surveyed in US survey feet measures correctly; clouds stored in longitude and latitude are projected. Color comes from RGB where the file carries it, otherwise from the ASPRS classification palette or an intensity ramp. Full-waveform formats 9 and 10, and .laz files written with the original 2011 LASzip encoding, are recognized but cannot be decompressed in a browser — the viewer says so rather than failing silently.
Embed on Your Website
Add this viewer to your own site with a single line of HTML. Click Embed in the toolbar to generate an embed code, or use the snippet below with your own file URL.
Your Files Stay on Your Computer
Your LAS / LAZ files are parsed entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, stored, or shared unless you explicitly click the Share button. Shared files are hosted for 90 days then deleted.
Frequently Asked Questions
▶Can it open compressed .laz files, or only .las?
Both. LAZ files are decompressed in your browser with LASzip compiled to WebAssembly — there is no server round trip and nothing to install. A million points decompress in about a second.
▶How big a point cloud can I open?
Files of a few hundred megabytes open fine on a desktop. Because a screen cannot resolve more than a few million points at once, very large clouds are drawn from an evenly spread sample — up to 5 million points on a desktop, fewer on a phone — and the status bar tells you when that has happened. The sample is spread across the whole scan, so the shape, extent and detail you see are representative rather than a corner of the file.
▶Why does my scan look gray instead of full color?
Only some point data record formats carry RGB (2, 3, 5, 7 and 8). A cloud stored as format 0, 1 or 6 has no color in it at all. In that case the viewer colors by ASPRS classification when the file is classified — brown ground, greens for vegetation, orange buildings, blue water — and otherwise by return intensity.
▶Can I measure on a point cloud?
Yes. Open Tools → Add Measurement and click two points; clicks snap to the nearest measured point. Distances are true to the survey because coordinates are converted from the file’s own units.
▶Are the real-world coordinates preserved?
Yes, though the cloud is drawn centered on the origin. Survey coordinates are enormous numbers — a UTM easting runs to hundreds of thousands of meters — and drawing them directly would cost about 30 mm of precision to floating-point rounding. The true position is kept alongside the geometry, so nothing is lost.
▶Can I toggle ground, vegetation and buildings?
Yes, when the file is classified. Each ASPRS class becomes its own layer in the Layers panel, so you can hide the ground to see what is underneath the canopy, or isolate buildings. Unclassified scans — most photogrammetry output — load as a single layer.
▶What is COPC, and does it open?
COPC (Cloud Optimized Point Cloud) is a .laz organized into a spatial octree so that cloud services can stream a region of it. It is still a valid LAZ file, and it opens here like any other — the whole cloud is read rather than streamed by region.
▶Is this LAS / LAZ viewer really free?
Yes, completely free. No signup, no watermarks, no file size limits on the viewer (the optional share-link feature has a 100 MB upload cap). Built by Innerscene as a tool for architects, engineers, and designers.
▶Are my files uploaded to a server?
No. All parsing, rendering, and conversion runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded, stored, or transmitted by default. The Share button is the only feature that uploads a file, and only when you explicitly click it.
▶Can I convert to another format?
Yes. Click Export in the toolbar to save as STL (3D printing), OBJ (Wavefront), GLB (glTF binary), or PDF (snapshot of the current view).
▶Can I embed this viewer on my own site?
Yes. Click Embed in the toolbar to generate a one-line <iframe> snippet you can paste into any HTML page. You can choose whether the embed shows the viewer’s toolbar.